this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2024
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I assumed everyone was using Calibre, but recent searches suggest that isn't always the case

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Honest question. Why host them? Finishing one book can take a while and they are incredibly small.

I just use calibre and sync with my e reader and phone occasionally.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

For me (I use Kavita) it’s because I want to be able to just pick up whatever device is in front of me at the moment and pick up the book where I last left off even if it was on another device

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Syncing progress seems like a very good reason for hosting. I didn't think of that.

Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Because I have a really cool library and it should all be kept in a centralised place

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I do the same thing. I’ve tried Kavita and Audiobookshelf and ended up just keeping the books on a network share and then accessing them through Calibre. I am sideloading to a Kindle though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

You can use calibre-web to send to your Kindle email. They will appear in the Kindle as "Documents"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Download whenever I feel like it. Share them.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

This is the right answer. I have dockerized Calibre and Calibre-Web for initial intake, then use Calibre-Web's OPDS feed with my Moon+ Android app for reading on my tablet/phone.

Calibre handles type conversions, metadata sync, and file organization.

Calibre-Web works well for browser reading on my PC.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Same here. My Kobo Libre 2 syncs with it over Wifi. It's nice.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Does it work for ePUBs too or just audio books?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yup. It's got built in browser based text reader and an audio player.

FYI, readarr needs separate instances for audio and text. Wasn't worth the hassle for me

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Academics focused, but Zotero indexing a large cloud storage drive.

Let's things organized by subject, tag, author, title, or whatever else I want. Also keeps my notes all in one place. Huge huge proponent and it's open source!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Never heard of Zotero before, it seems to be quite capable

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

The best thing is adding the metadata of a book by ISBN. That or simply search it on worldcat.org and adding by the browser extension.

Phenomenal citations manager.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

I use Kavita and KavitaEmail to organize and have a frontend for my books, and the latter to email them to my kindle if it's not on there yet. My kavita container is stopped most of the time because I already know what I'm going to read next and just need it up to sync or send new books.

Used to just have my library I exported from Amazon and ebooks com on a single folder on my NAS, kavita helped clean it up a bit.

I also tried audiobookshelf but mostly for audiobooks and podcasts and didnt quite fit my workflow I already had and liked using kavita and Antennapod.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Calibre for my Kobo, Librera FD on my phone.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I'm just here to lurk and see what others say, as I've used Calibre in the past and it didn't really do the job I was hoping it would.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Same. My organization scheme heavily relies on calibres custom columns and export schemas though so it would be hard for me to switch anyway.

The only 2 things I dislike about calibre are the lack of a server based version and the inability to assign a book to multiple series

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Yeah, I just want something that looks good, can link works by authors and shared universes and can sync reading progress across devices.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I tried Kavita but it didn't have the features I needed. I ended up just throwing them on Nextcloud and using Nextcloud sync onto my reader (Box Air 3c)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

What features did you need?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I am using Calibre-Web mostly - but I have run into issues with thumbnail generation after my collection hit around 500000 books. I am just over 600000 now, but a large swathe don't have thumbnails unless I do a manual metadata search. I should probably look for an alternative, but at this point I CBF.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Over half a million books? I'm so envious!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Why lol? The library interface is great and it can manage multiple users. I haven't used it for book hosting, but I am trying to keep an eye out

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I know, it's just the fact that I use it for pretty much all of my media that I find kinda funny. Goes to show, it's really an amazing program tho.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Yep, Jellyfin is super underrated.